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tiistai 29. maaliskuuta 2016

You may have noticed that we collect old tins. Well, we also collect new ones as they will be old someday, won't they? the new ones have to be somewhat special, I don't buy every new tin I see (couldn't afford it even if I wanted to).

lauantai 26. maaliskuuta 2016

We oiled the kitchen worktops last weekend and it seemed a good time to rearrange the stuff I have in the kitchen. The plate rack got a new spring look with pastel colours. And as we have a new glass cabinet in the living room I moved all the glasses from the rack to the cabinet and got room for my star copper pot collection.

perjantai 25. maaliskuuta 2016

We have a really ugly window in our bathroom. It is from the sixties, it has been installed too low and it is simply just ugly. We have tried to find a new (I mean old but new to us) window but there seems to be no small windows to be had anywhere in Finland. At least not the kind we would like and that would suit our house. So...I had to solve the problem somehow and the curtains were the answer. I bought a dark grey fold curtain from Ellos and then some thin full length curtains from Indiska. We installed all the curtains about 40 cm above the window frame to hide the fact that the window is installed too low. And what do you know, it worked! At least when the sun isn't shining, the dark fold curtain does the work rather well. So now I can breath again while trying to find a new window. By the way, the Indiska curtains were a find...they cost in total 14,95 euros and the colour is a perfect match to the paintwork, wallpaper and wooden details (and the best thing of all: there was no need to sew, I just folded the curtains to the tassel tiebacks).

torstai 24. maaliskuuta 2016

I love beautiful things. A good thing about them is that they look great even when everything is a mess. We decided to oil the worktops in the kitchen and had to move everything away while the tops were oiled (by my husband) and while the tops were drying (at least six hours). As I said, even messed up our kitchen stuff looks rather good.

keskiviikko 23. maaliskuuta 2016

You know how one thing leads to another. One day you are kind of collecting old record players (not me, though..) and then you find yourself buying anything and everything related to playing (old) music.

tiistai 22. maaliskuuta 2016

As it happens we have collected bar assecories and a lot of them are about whisky. Well, maybe one day I just have to drink a glass to celebrate our collection. On the other hand I could have a sip of gin instead, we have gin jugs and trays, too.

sunnuntai 20. maaliskuuta 2016

A bag of small green peppers catched my eye in supermarket last week. I had no idea what to do with them but bought them anyway. I rummaged through my recipe collection and found a promising dish in the Swedish Elle mat ooh vin magazine. I changed it a bit and the result is a delicious side dish for chicken or fish or on its own as an appetizer.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the peppers and chilies and let fry with the highest heat for a few minutes without stirring. Turn over and again let fry without stirring. Repeat until the peppers get a nice colour. Crush some finger salt over the peppers and serve with the goat cheese. P.S. don't eat the stems, each eater trims them while eating.

tiistai 15. maaliskuuta 2016

I hate sewing (and cutting and ironing) so last weekend was rather stressful. Luckily my husband helped me with the sewing so we finally got our hall curtains in place. Now somebody (=my husband) needs to paint the window frames and the hall would look rather nice. Oh, and we still need to change the curtain rods from white to dark ones, the white ones don't look too hot. The curtain on the door was bought at the same time as the fabric for window so they go well together. The tassels were bought separately but match well, too. I am rather proud to say that I have a really good colour memory and usually manage to buy an exact fit without samples. Don't try this at home as a good colour memory is rather rare...

lauantai 12. maaliskuuta 2016

Yes, we have enough coffee cups already! But the new Issey Miyake cups for Iittala (link) were so beautiful we just couldn't resist buying new morning coffee cups for ourselves. Pink for me and green for the husband (couldn't have guessed this one without saying, now could you :).

torstai 10. maaliskuuta 2016

The old Rettig cigarette tin looks rather romantic when photographed on a table cloth with roses. We know for sure that someone has smoked these cigarettes in Vårkulla as we found a broken tin when renovating the back yard. It was nice to find the same tin in mint condition - the plate is really thin so I guess many of these have not survived through the years.

keskiviikko 9. maaliskuuta 2016

We have Hackman's Memory flatware in Vårkulla and as the series is discontinued, we need to find the smaller utensils from other series. But nothing seems to please my eye. For serving salmon and herring etc. we found these small forks for an euro - they look cute and the price was right so finally, result.

maanantai 7. maaliskuuta 2016

The orange vase was in the hall in Vårkulla for a while but now I decided to move it to our home where the decoration leans more to the 50's/60's. As I happened to have the exact same coloured blue nail polish as the decorations on the vase we took a picture before the move instead of photographing this at home. I guess at least half of my friends will hate the picture as the vase is rather bold, but here it is anyway.

Do the mash first: Boil the root vegetables in water till done, drain the water. Mash the veggies with milk and salt.

Saute
onion and garlic in oil. Add tomatoes and carrots and let boil for ten
minutes. Add the other ingredients and pour into an oven dish. Spread
the mash on top and bake in 250 degrees for 15 minutes.